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Food Safety and Defense CertificateProgram - Graduate Certificate - Course
Schedule - Faculty - Contacts
The Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA) is a consortium of eleven universities offering fully online graduate programs. Each university brings a unique strength to the multi-institution academic programs. In a multi-institution degree program, you apply, and are admitted at one university; enroll in all your courses at that university; and, graduate or receive a certificate from that university. However, your online courses are taught by the best faculty in the discipline from several universities. By providing a distance education Food Safety and Defense graduate certificate program we will serve the needs of industry and agencies that must protect the human food supply from accidental or deliberate contamination with pathogenic microbes and/or toxicants. In an era of terrorism and global food systems, effective control of foodborne hazards requires advanced education. There is an urgent need for online education for food industry personnel who, while working fulltime, would like to pursue more in-depth specialized training in food safety and security that is pertinent to their job. Many food-related industry and agency professionals have a B.S. in some aspect of food and agricultural sciences or related area along with good technical background and work experience. But they may not be able to pursue a full graduate degree, due to expense, time constraints and/or interests. These needs warrant the development of a program to prepare graduate students and food-related professionals to effectively deal with food safety and biosecurity issues. The Food Safety & Defense Graduate Certificate is in the approval process at Iowa State University, Kansas State University, University of Missouri, and the University of Nebraska.
The online certificate includes a minimum of 12 credits, 8-9 credits in core courses and at least 3-4 elective credits, on topics including food microbiology, foodborne toxicants, HACCP, food safety and security overview, food laws, risk assessment, food biotechnology, rapid food microbiological methods, food allergy, and food fermentations with each participating university offering at least one course on a regular basis, and each university cross-listing all courses. Students must meet admissions requirements for the Master of Science degree in Food Science or equivalent degree at their respective universities. A tuition disbursement framework similar to that in operation for the Great Plains IDEA consortium is proposed. Certificate enrollments of 20-25 students per year are anticipated, with time to completion of 2-3 years (1-2 courses per semester).
It is possible that a student may already have taken one or more of these courses or their equivalent on another degree or certificate program. Upon approval by the major professor, up to 3 hours of credit could be accepted toward the 12 hour minimum required for this certificate.
For further information and application instructions please contact these participating universities:
Students will be better prepared to meet challenges of accidental or deliberate food contamination within the food industry, to protect public health, prevent foodborne illnesses, and facilitate or improve the profitability of food industries by minimizing health risks related to foodborne pathogens and toxicants.
Upon successful completion of the Food Safety and Defense program the student will be able to:
food safety analyst, quality control specialist, HACCP consultant, plant manager, food safety engineer |
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